ArticleScientific reports2019
Ancient amino acids from fossil feathers in amber.
Article in Scientific reports, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 145 citations in OpenAlex.
- Resin does not safeguard insect DNA during early decay despite preservation of soft tissues.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Medulla-free barb rami highlight the morphological diversity of early feathers.Zoological research · 2025Article
- Experimental maturation of pine resin in sediment to investigate the formation of synthetic copal and amber.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Insights into the early evolution of modern avian physiology from fossilized soft tissues from the Mesozoic.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Preservation of proteins in the geosphere.Nature ecology & evolution · 2024Review
- Two-photon excitation fluorescence microspectroscopy protocols for examining fluorophores in fossil plants.Communications biology · 2024Article
- Morphological and organic spectroscopic studies of a 44-million-year-old leaf beetle (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) in amber with endogenous remains of chitin.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Article
- Successful extraction of insect DNA from recent copal inclusions: limits and perspectives.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Cretaceous amniote integuments recorded through a taphonomic process unique to resins.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Variations of Mesozoic feathers: Insights from the morphogenesis of extant feather rachises.Evolution; international journal of organic evolution · 2020Article
- Mimicry in Cretaceous Bugs.iScience · 2020Article
- DNA from resin-embedded organisms: Past, present and future.PloS one · 2020Article
- Fly palaeo-evo-devo: immature stages of bibionomorphan dipterans in Baltic and Bitterfeld amber.PeerJ · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors at 8 institutions in 5 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Ancient protein analysis is a rapidly developing field of research. Proteins ranging in age from the Quaternary to Jurassic are being used to answer questions about phylogeny, evolution, and extinction. However, these analyses are sometimes contentious, and focus primarily on large vertebrates in sedimentary fossilisation environments; there are few studies of protein preservation in fossils in amber. Here we show exceptionally slow racemisation rates during thermal degradation experiments of resin enclosed feathers, relative to previous thermal degradation experiments of ostrich eggshell, coral skeleton, and limpet shell. We also recover amino acids from two specimens of fossil feathers in amber. The amino acid compositions are broadly similar to those of degraded feathers, but concentrations are very low, suggesting that much of the original protein has been degraded and lost. High levels of racemisation in more apolar, slowly racemising amino acids suggest that some of the amino acids were ancient and therefore original. Our findings indicate that the unique fossilisation environment inside amber shows potential for the recovery of ancient amino acids and proteins.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.